Microsoft doesn't just ban things. They instead keep changing it slightly so that your tools keep breaking in an effort to frustrate you into giving up.
Usually when they try to outright ban something they get taken to court.
Actually, in defense of MS (I can't believe I just typed that!) I really don't think MS does this shit "on purpose".
They are just SO rudderless and scatter-brained, that they really DO just keep chasing "the next big thing", and everyone downstream simply pays the price for their ADHD-like behavior.
I like customization. That's why I use Linux Mint with KDE.
But if you use Windows, then you have no right to complain about MS's software. You've freely chosen it, and you're refusing to abandon it in the face of alternatives.
Well, sort of. My Employer has "chosen" it, and I like to eat.
With speakers that old, it's possible you're hearing distortion from the speakers due to the capacitors in the crossover being old and crappy, or due to the crossover itself being cheaply made.
Polyester caps used in the mid and high-freq xover section; which are QUITE stable over time and temperature. Don't think there is any significant leakage from the LF section into the tweets; that's a LOT of octaves-away!!! Plus, if it was THAT bad, I would have either wasted the tweets, or been moved to look into it, because the sound would be gnarly, regardless of program source or material. But that isn't the case...
Plus, the effect is sometimes even MORE noticeable with earbuds/phones, where there is no passive crossover involved. Sure, the IM distortion is a bit higher with single-driver configurations; but I am hearing the same thing there, too. And as long as you back-down from "ear-bleed" levels, my Sony headphones (yes, I need to get some Grados) and my Sony earbuds do a pretty good job at accuracy and definition.
Or maybe you're simply hearing clipping and overcompression, which is a plague on any kind of modern music, due to bad production. But that's not a technical issue, it's a wetware issue that can only be fixed by beating the responsible sound techs with a clue-by-four.
Believe me, I know EXACTLY what THAT sounds like!
No, seriously. I have been listening critically to music recording and reproduction since at least my early teens; and I REALLY think I am hearing what I think I am hearing, in all seriousness.
Fortunately, most of the music I like to listen to doesn't fall into the "Everything Louder Than Everything Else" category; so that isn't much of a problem. Steely Dan has always had careful production techniques (and I am sure you know about the legendary Donald Fagen "Nightfly" album), and pretty much anything recorded/mixed/produced by Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, et al) and most/all Peter Gabriel stuff is well-recorded and well-mastered, with sometimes scary amounts of Dynamic Range, and without ANY of the "Push it to 11" bullshit so popular with the Deaf-as-a-Post Producers of today.
As an aside, I have always been annoyed that, as soon as we got a reproduction format (CD) that was capable of that 96 dB dynamic-range, the frickin' Recording Industry IMMEDIATELY normalized everything up to 0xfffc, and digitally-compressed (which is at least better than analog compression) everything to within 2 dB of THAT...
And THAT, my friend, is a "Don't get me started" topic!!!
No, you probably couldn't hear up to 30 kHz, since that sort of thing is only possible under ideal laboratory conditions, with very loud signals. The human auditory system simply doesn't have any kind of meaningful receptors for frequencies that high.
I said ALMOST 30 kHz. I could hear very well up to a little over 22 kHz, and under the right conditions, could "sense" stuff up to about 27 kHz.
BTW, your comment about hearing "artifacts" is exactly what I was talking about with "frequency foldback". In the case of me hearing the old-school ultrasonic traffic-sensors (which operated at around 27 K, and which used a JBL "Ring Radiator" tweeter as the transducer), I was probably hearing my own eardrum producing a subharmonic. In any case, what you are hearing is the "Difference" part of the "Sum and Difference" frequencies produced when two signals are mixed. This is how all AM radios work. It's called "Heterodyning" when speaking in radio-terms, but the same effect is called "Aliasing" when speaking in terms of audio-sampling.
This can happen with non-oversampling DACs in some cases. But given your age, you were probably listening to LPs or reel-to-reel tape, which did have some ultrasonic capability, but it was mostly drowned out by the noise floor.
Actually, the 22 kHz figure is from a true hearing-test, under controlled conditions. I couldn't have quantified my upper hearing-limit by just listening to some musical samples on vinyl or tape. Having said that, vinyl particularly could demonstrably go way higher than 20 kHz, if you could get the signal onto tape. I submit as evidence the short-lived JVC CD-4 Discrete Quadraphonic encoding system for vinyl, that actually used a 38 kHz "subcarrier" to carry the rear channels. This 38 kHz was amazingly able to be picked-up by a production-quality phono cartridge (Audio-Technica "SS" series), and decoded into the rear-channel information. So, that is a system that PROVES that vinyl, at least, doesn't stop at 20 kHz. But I am NOT a vinyl fan: As much as I am whining about 44/16 not being enough (and it isn't) I loves me my CD and AAC collection!
The stuff you're talking about with frequency "foldback" etc. (aliasing) is only applicable to shitty equipment without properly implemented low pass filters, such as NOS and filterless DACs, but only simple-minded audiophiles use those. Either that, or ultra-shitty production with bad downsampling from the master to the final CD-quality product.
You are correct that most mastering equipment has a brick-wall (24 dB/octave or greater) LPF (low-pass filter) to attempt to filter-out the ultrasonics before they are encoded and cause "foldback" into the audio-range. BUT, I have heard MANY, MANY recordings where the tambourine or "hand-bell" (don't know what those are actually called) part is almost unbearable, due to frequency-foldback effects WELL down into the midrange and even upper-bass regions. That HAS to be the result of one of two things: Overmodulation at the recording-end on the original track, or "Aliasing".
And I don't have exactly crappy playback equipment. The system I use at home consists of an Oppo DVD/CD player (which can do at least 24/96 with DVD-A) connected over TOSLink to an Arcam A/V Receiver (which can process at least 24/96 on the TOSLink inputs), and some Avid 103 speakers with Philips-dome mylar tweeters that go up at least an octave above human hearing. Not "TRUE Audiopile" stuff (don't have that kind of $$$); but CERTAINLY not a "Close-n-Play".
You're 60 years old, and you claim to be able to hear the distortion from high-frequency sounds?
First of all, it's exceedingly unlikely that you can even hear anything at all above ~12-14 kHz or so, due to completely normal age-related hearing loss.
Secondly, what you're mentioning has nothing to do with inherent limitations in 44.1 kHz digital audio. It's much more likely to be a result of bad recording practices, bad production or bad equipment on your end.
You say you can DEFINITELY hear the difference. Have you put it to a double-blind test? Because it's extremely likely that you're simply deluding yourself.
I freely admit my personal frequency response ain't what it used to be. I'd say 12-14k with speakers is a pretty fair assessment. But that seems to go WAY up with good earbuds. Don't really know why; but it does. I'm sure it still isn't as good as it was in my teens, when I could clearly hear up to nearly 30 kHz (no, really); but especially with earbuds, it is still pretty good overall.
But frequency response does not correlate directly with accuracy, especially with a brain in the mix ( no pun). Hearing loss isn't exactly a simple low-pass filter. It's kind of hard to describe, actually; because the brain is so wrapped-up in the whole "hearing" process, you're just going to have to trust me that I really CAN still "hear" the difference between mediocre, good, and great audio recording and reproduction, with a few limitations, honestly, or ask other older males you know that would pay attention to this. Some day, you'll understand. Now, get off of my lawn!!!
But all kidding aside, yes, I have had friends help me conduct A/B/X tests; and with a very good recording, and very good reproduction, you can actually hear the difference between 44/16 and 96/24 (anything higher is probably not discernable by most humans), especially in instruments with high frequency harmonics (some of which extend well past 20 kHz).
This NOT about "music for dogs", or "AudioPILE voodoo"; the fact of the matter is, the "frequency foldback" of the 44 kHz sample frequency "beating against" the near-ultrasonic and ultrasonic overtones of some percussion and a few other natural instruments, and probably even more so for some electronic ones, creates "undertones" that extend WAY the Hell down into the audible frequency band, where NO filtering is really practical (at least not until there is a big leap in DSP speed), and where age-related high-frequency hearing loss plays ZERO part.
So, yeah, I can CERTAINLY hear the BY-PRODUCTS of insufficient sampling rate/depth, even if my ability to hear the raw frequency-response has somewhat diminished.
That's cute; you obviously have me confused with an audioPILE. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But I am an experienced Audio engineer, and, as an electronics engineer, I do understand the Nyquist criteria, as well as the dynamic range increase that each additional bit of bit-depth represents.
On the face of it, you are somewhat correct; 16 bits gives you 96 dBm (I believe it is dBm, but it might be dBV, can't remember offhand; but you didn't even bother to define which, which makes your use of the term "dB" ENTIRELY
USELESS. Did you even know that?) of dynamic range, which is a lot, as your examples illustrate.
HOWEVER, it isn't the whole story.
You see, there's this thing called "quantization error", which occurs in ANY and EVERY A/D and D/A system. It is essentially like a Law of Thermodynamics: You just CAN'T cheat it, you CAN'T ignore it, and you CAN'T remove it. The only things you can do is MINIMIZE IT. That takes bit-depth. Yes, you can do analog and digital low-pass filtering, but in order for that filtering to not affect the frequencies of interest, the "quantization noise" must be very, very small. That again means more bit-depth.
So what? you say. That stuff is "down in the dirt", and with 96 dBm of resolution, it simply doesn't matter. Probably true if all you listen to is 128 kb/s MP3's with 2 dBm of dynamic range, through $15 earbuds; but you see, the biggest thing that quantization noise brings to the party is Harmonic Distortion. That is caused both by the quantization itself, causing your nice sine wave to turn into a stair step approximation of same; but also by the sharp edges of the steps themselves.
And the quieter the signal, the greater that noise plays a part. That's why they often characterize noise as an Equivalent Input Signal.
Have you ever had a stereo or musical instrument amp with a blown speaker? When the music is loud, you don't notice the voice coil scraping against the side of the magnet; but when the music is quiet, you can clearly hear the signal get "fuzzy". That's because the "signal" got quieter; but the "noise" stayed the same volume. Therefore, the signal-to-noise RATIO went up. WAY up!
So it is with quantization noise. And when you consider that, even when it is "loud", Everytime the waveform approaches a zero-crossing, it is momentarily "quiet". So, this means that the lower the bit depth, the lower the signal-to-noise ratio, and hence, the higher the Harmonic Distortion.
So, what you are saying is that you never upgrade RAM or hard disk drives? You never replace the hard disk to get a larger drive or faster SSD over the course of ownership?
Your comment is silly, and you should feel silly typing it.
You need to learn to READ. I said:
If you have a laptop, AIO, or cylindrical computer like nearly all Mac (not "Hack") owners,and you have to take it apart more often than once every half-decade, then it is your computer (and/or you) that has a problem.
Well, if we're talking about a recent laptop, most of them have soldered-in RAM; so nevermind that upgrade.
My 2013 MacBook Pro still has RAM sockets; but that is about the last year you'll find them on nearly any laptop, from any manufacturer. In fact, there is some sort of Windows standard that REQUIRES soldered-in RAM (can't remember the stupid MS name for it). And since Apple computers are Certified for Windows, I would imagine that applies to them, too.
As for HDD/SSD, sure. But if you are upgrading those more often than every half-decade, something is wrong in your personal ability to spec hardware properly; or you are just one of those insane people that absolutely MUST have something new every 6 months. Again, see "can't spec hardware properly."
That's why I put the qualifier on it of "every half decade". You chose to ignore the qualifier and turn it into an absolute "never"; which I CLEARLY didn't say.
So, it is actually YOUR comment that is silly, and you should learn to read.
That mysterious "iTunes Music" of yours sounds a lot like "Apple Music", except of course that everybody knows that not the entire iTunes store is available on Apple Music
My mistake: I read "iTunes Music", and my brain "saw" "Apple Music". Yes, everything I said about "iTunes Music" actually pertains to "Apple Music". My apologies.
Having said that, I didn't "lie" about the "Entire Catalog" being available for streaming through Apple Music. If you will care to read more carefully, I said virtually the entire iTunes MUSIC Catalog is available for streaming through [Apple] Music." A few (very few) of the more "Top of the Pops" songs are not available. These are usually the same ones that are not available for single-song purchase. That isn't Apple's doing. It's the record labels that are controlling what is, and what isn't, available.
But in about 3 months of searching for, and listening to, many, many songs on Apple Music, I have only encountered about one or two songs that were in the Catalog; but weren't available for streaming. So, I consider it a pretty damned good deal to be able to pick and choose what I want to listen to from NEARLY the entire iTunes MUSIC Catalog, instead of having some stupid AI DECIDE FOR ME.
That's where Apple Music whips all over other streaming services; that is if you are in the U.S.A. (I think Apple Music may still be U.S. only). And I am not sure it is available on Android. I run iTunes on my work Win 7 laptop, and it does work there, though.
I subscribe to iTunes Music, and it hasn't deleted a single byte of data from my work Win 7 laptop, my MacBook Pro, my iPhone nor my iPad.
I don't know what is iTunes Music. Is that a made up product that fanbois use to defend Apple when it's clear to everyone else that Apple did (again) a terrible job with one of their actual products?
No, and if you'd get your head out of your ass, perhaps you would have heard of it. it's Apple's Streaming Service; and although I generally hate streaming services, this is pretty cool. They have the typical "channels", which I ignore; butmwhat is quite unique is that you have unlimited access to virtually the ENTIRE iTunes MUSIC Catalog, with no frickin' AI deciding what you " want" to hear. Just do a MUSIC search in the iTunes Store, click the Play icon, and voila! Even works on cellular (you have to enable that specifically in iOS).
One of the links leads to a story where a guy complains about Apple Music (not mere iTunes). When you subscribe, they actually remove files from your machine and store them in "their cloud", playing you back whichever song they deem a match for your file. And you lose it all when you stop paying.
This is fast becoming an urban legend. But it just isn't true. Neither iTunes Music nor iTunes Match (two entirely separate services) delete ANYTHING from your computer/iPhone/iPad.
I subscribe to iTunes Music, and it hasn't deleted a single byte of data from my work Win 7 laptop, my MacBook Pro, my iPhone nor my iPad.
That's cute. When you're a DJ, 44khz isn't enough. 16 bits is fine. Do you know why? Should I bother telling you?
It has to do with that Fourier transform thing. When you have two different tracks that are in different keys and have different tempos, you need more samples than 44khz to do the pitch and tempo shifting to match the two tracks.
Keep feeling smug, though. Clearly I must be wrong.
What you are running into is math errors piling-up. That's why you need both higher sample rates and higher bit depth.
And no, 16 bits isn't fine for anything more critical than listening to a portable music player on the train.
There's really no point in 96khz ever. You can fully reproduce an analog signal with a digital one by simply making the sample rate double the spectrum that you need to capture. Since human hearing tops out at 20khz, there's no point in sampling more than the 44khz found in CD's, which means that extra information is effectively just wasted space. 24 bits per sample is also a waste unless you work in a studio type environment and are working with a master copy that you intend on mixing, however a human listener can't distinguish 16-bit from 24-bit.
You're wrong. And 16 bits is an even worse restriction.
There's this thing called "aliasing". You might want to look into it.
The devil is literally in the details, or lack thereof, in under-sampled signals. Listen to some music with some percussion instruments like Triangle, Bells, Tambourine, or some Cymbal-Types. I have gotten really sick and tired of 44/16 music with cymbals that sound like escaping steam, and tambourines with aliased "undertones" down into the upper-BASS regions.
That's why I buy my music on DVD-A whenever possible. Even my 60-year-old Male ears can DEFINITELY hear the difference.
And as far as the bit-depth goes, whip out an oscilloscope and the Philips Test CD, and watch what happens with the -60 dBm Sine wave. Spoiler alert: It comes out as a SQUARE wave...
iTunes is a dumpster fire of astronomical proportions, but at some point the user has to take some responsibility for not entrusting valuable data to a flaky consumer-grade application. This sounds like a case where the wrong tool was used for the job.
I suspect he had iTunes to listen to shit he bought, and pro-grade software to deal with his own compositions, but a) as a composer the amount of songs he has to buy is probably several orders of magnitude greater then that of a sane person, and b) it's not unlikely iTunes found his work stash all by itself, and then when he clicked the wrong dialogue on the "cleaning space" screen it decided "why does he need 6 separate versions of this one song we have on the iTunes cloud" and deleted his originals.
While your comments are kind of off-mark, it did make me think of the "De-Duplication" feature in iTunes. The user has to invoke it manually; but I could see someone doing that without thinking it through, and trashing large sections of their iTunes Library.
No iTunes actually deletes the files. If you want them again you are supposed to redownload them from apple music. But it will also "match" your song to its internal database, and if there is a match then the file doesn't even make it to the cloud, they just serve you the version they have. On top of it, if you stop paying for apple music, you loose access to the files you stored in the cloud.
But, iTunes Match is a completely Opt-In service. Not that losing ones' data is ever cool...
Seeing the same problem. Appparently it's a software problem since my local Apple Store said they weren't allowed to accept a laptop for repair with that problem.
Apple people never take their precious hardware apart. They have to bring it into a "genius" and hope they can help.
What you mean is, "Apple people hardly ever HAVE to take their precious hardware apart."
If you have a laptop, AIO, or cylindrical computer like nearly all Mac (not "Hack") owners,and you have to take it apart more often than once every half-decade, then it is your computer (and/or you) that has a problem.
And, BTW, every Mac owner I know either does their own service on their Macs, or has a knowledgable friend/family member help. I only know of one that went to a Genius Bar, and that was just once.
I was wondering how much of this is simply pulling the relevant WebKit changes into their copy of the Blink tree.
Well, as much as I would love to think that, I am pretty sure it is not the case.
I am pretty sure that App Nap and Safari Power Save are "private frameworks" for OS X and Safari. Remember, WebKit is only the "rendering engine" (I think); not the entire Browser; and if this was part of WebKit, I'm pretty sure the other 99% of the WebKit-Based browsers would have started to tout this "battery saving" feature by now.
Slashdot Mirror
Better yet, move to an OS that actually respects the user.
That AIN'T Linux!
Want proof? Just try to find ANYONE in the "Linux Community" that will deign to give a mere "User" even the time-of-day when they have a question.
About 100% of the time, if there is even ANY response, it is one of dismissive derision.
Microsoft doesn't just ban things. They instead keep changing it slightly so that your tools keep breaking in an effort to frustrate you into giving up.
Usually when they try to outright ban something they get taken to court.
Actually, in defense of MS (I can't believe I just typed that!) I really don't think MS does this shit "on purpose".
They are just SO rudderless and scatter-brained, that they really DO just keep chasing "the next big thing", and everyone downstream simply pays the price for their ADHD-like behavior.
If you paid for the software then you have every right to complain. But then again, complaining with your wallet is the most effective method.
I only have Windows 10 on my laptop because I run a vinyl plotter and that's my only option.
Not exactly true...
I like customization. That's why I use Linux Mint with KDE.
But if you use Windows, then you have no right to complain about MS's software. You've freely chosen it, and you're refusing to abandon it in the face of alternatives.
Well, sort of. My Employer has "chosen" it, and I like to eat.
Where do I go to bend over?
Why, in front of your dwelling's most-prominent window, of course!
...and it wants its Trademark back!
With speakers that old, it's possible you're hearing distortion from the speakers due to the capacitors in the crossover being old and crappy, or due to the crossover itself being cheaply made.
Polyester caps used in the mid and high-freq xover section; which are QUITE stable over time and temperature. Don't think there is any significant leakage from the LF section into the tweets; that's a LOT of octaves-away!!! Plus, if it was THAT bad, I would have either wasted the tweets, or been moved to look into it, because the sound would be gnarly, regardless of program source or material. But that isn't the case...
Plus, the effect is sometimes even MORE noticeable with earbuds/phones, where there is no passive crossover involved. Sure, the IM distortion is a bit higher with single-driver configurations; but I am hearing the same thing there, too. And as long as you back-down from "ear-bleed" levels, my Sony headphones (yes, I need to get some Grados) and my Sony earbuds do a pretty good job at accuracy and definition.
Or maybe you're simply hearing clipping and overcompression, which is a plague on any kind of modern music, due to bad production. But that's not a technical issue, it's a wetware issue that can only be fixed by beating the responsible sound techs with a clue-by-four.
Believe me, I know EXACTLY what THAT sounds like!
No, seriously. I have been listening critically to music recording and reproduction since at least my early teens; and I REALLY think I am hearing what I think I am hearing, in all seriousness.
Fortunately, most of the music I like to listen to doesn't fall into the "Everything Louder Than Everything Else" category; so that isn't much of a problem. Steely Dan has always had careful production techniques (and I am sure you know about the legendary Donald Fagen "Nightfly" album), and pretty much anything recorded/mixed/produced by Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, et al) and most/all Peter Gabriel stuff is well-recorded and well-mastered, with sometimes scary amounts of Dynamic Range, and without ANY of the "Push it to 11" bullshit so popular with the Deaf-as-a-Post Producers of today.
As an aside, I have always been annoyed that, as soon as we got a reproduction format (CD) that was capable of that 96 dB dynamic-range, the frickin' Recording Industry IMMEDIATELY normalized everything up to 0xfffc, and digitally-compressed (which is at least better than analog compression) everything to within 2 dB of THAT...
And THAT, my friend, is a "Don't get me started" topic!!!
No, you probably couldn't hear up to 30 kHz, since that sort of thing is only possible under ideal laboratory conditions, with very loud signals. The human auditory system simply doesn't have any kind of meaningful receptors for frequencies that high.
I said ALMOST 30 kHz. I could hear very well up to a little over 22 kHz, and under the right conditions, could "sense" stuff up to about 27 kHz.
BTW, your comment about hearing "artifacts" is exactly what I was talking about with "frequency foldback". In the case of me hearing the old-school ultrasonic traffic-sensors (which operated at around 27 K, and which used a JBL "Ring Radiator" tweeter as the transducer), I was probably hearing my own eardrum producing a subharmonic. In any case, what you are hearing is the "Difference" part of the "Sum and Difference" frequencies produced when two signals are mixed. This is how all AM radios work. It's called "Heterodyning" when speaking in radio-terms, but the same effect is called "Aliasing" when speaking in terms of audio-sampling.
This can happen with non-oversampling DACs in some cases. But given your age, you were probably listening to LPs or reel-to-reel tape, which did have some ultrasonic capability, but it was mostly drowned out by the noise floor.
Actually, the 22 kHz figure is from a true hearing-test, under controlled conditions. I couldn't have quantified my upper hearing-limit by just listening to some musical samples on vinyl or tape. Having said that, vinyl particularly could demonstrably go way higher than 20 kHz, if you could get the signal onto tape. I submit as evidence the short-lived JVC CD-4 Discrete Quadraphonic encoding system for vinyl, that actually used a 38 kHz "subcarrier" to carry the rear channels. This 38 kHz was amazingly able to be picked-up by a production-quality phono cartridge (Audio-Technica "SS" series), and decoded into the rear-channel information. So, that is a system that PROVES that vinyl, at least, doesn't stop at 20 kHz. But I am NOT a vinyl fan: As much as I am whining about 44/16 not being enough (and it isn't) I loves me my CD and AAC collection!
The stuff you're talking about with frequency "foldback" etc. (aliasing) is only applicable to shitty equipment without properly implemented low pass filters, such as NOS and filterless DACs, but only simple-minded audiophiles use those. Either that, or ultra-shitty production with bad downsampling from the master to the final CD-quality product.
You are correct that most mastering equipment has a brick-wall (24 dB/octave or greater) LPF (low-pass filter) to attempt to filter-out the ultrasonics before they are encoded and cause "foldback" into the audio-range. BUT, I have heard MANY, MANY recordings where the tambourine or "hand-bell" (don't know what those are actually called) part is almost unbearable, due to frequency-foldback effects WELL down into the midrange and even upper-bass regions. That HAS to be the result of one of two things: Overmodulation at the recording-end on the original track, or "Aliasing".
And I don't have exactly crappy playback equipment. The system I use at home consists of an Oppo DVD/CD player (which can do at least 24/96 with DVD-A) connected over TOSLink to an Arcam A/V Receiver (which can process at least 24/96 on the TOSLink inputs), and some Avid 103 speakers with Philips-dome mylar tweeters that go up at least an octave above human hearing. Not "TRUE Audiopile" stuff (don't have that kind of $$$); but CERTAINLY not a "Close-n-Play".
You're 60 years old, and you claim to be able to hear the distortion from high-frequency sounds?
First of all, it's exceedingly unlikely that you can even hear anything at all above ~12-14 kHz or so, due to completely normal age-related hearing loss.
Secondly, what you're mentioning has nothing to do with inherent limitations in 44.1 kHz digital audio. It's much more likely to be a result of bad recording practices, bad production or bad equipment on your end.
You say you can DEFINITELY hear the difference. Have you put it to a double-blind test? Because it's extremely likely that you're simply deluding yourself.
I freely admit my personal frequency response ain't what it used to be. I'd say 12-14k with speakers is a pretty fair assessment. But that seems to go WAY up with good earbuds. Don't really know why; but it does. I'm sure it still isn't as good as it was in my teens, when I could clearly hear up to nearly 30 kHz (no, really); but especially with earbuds, it is still pretty good overall.
But frequency response does not correlate directly with accuracy, especially with a brain in the mix ( no pun). Hearing loss isn't exactly a simple low-pass filter. It's kind of hard to describe, actually; because the brain is so wrapped-up in the whole "hearing" process, you're just going to have to trust me that I really CAN still "hear" the difference between mediocre, good, and great audio recording and reproduction, with a few limitations, honestly, or ask other older males you know that would pay attention to this. Some day, you'll understand. Now, get off of my lawn!!!
But all kidding aside, yes, I have had friends help me conduct A/B/X tests; and with a very good recording, and very good reproduction, you can actually hear the difference between 44/16 and 96/24 (anything higher is probably not discernable by most humans), especially in instruments with high frequency harmonics (some of which extend well past 20 kHz).
This NOT about "music for dogs", or "AudioPILE voodoo"; the fact of the matter is, the "frequency foldback" of the 44 kHz sample frequency "beating against" the near-ultrasonic and ultrasonic overtones of some percussion and a few other natural instruments, and probably even more so for some electronic ones, creates "undertones" that extend WAY the Hell down into the audible frequency band, where NO filtering is really practical (at least not until there is a big leap in DSP speed), and where age-related high-frequency hearing loss plays ZERO part.
So, yeah, I can CERTAINLY hear the BY-PRODUCTS of insufficient sampling rate/depth, even if my ability to hear the raw frequency-response has somewhat diminished.
So please, stop the audiophoolery
That's cute; you obviously have me confused with an audioPILE. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But I am an experienced Audio engineer, and, as an electronics engineer, I do understand the Nyquist criteria, as well as the dynamic range increase that each additional bit of bit-depth represents.
On the face of it, you are somewhat correct; 16 bits gives you 96 dBm (I believe it is dBm, but it might be dBV, can't remember offhand; but you didn't even bother to define which, which makes your use of the term "dB" ENTIRELY USELESS. Did you even know that?) of dynamic range, which is a lot, as your examples illustrate.
HOWEVER, it isn't the whole story.
You see, there's this thing called "quantization error", which occurs in ANY and EVERY A/D and D/A system. It is essentially like a Law of Thermodynamics: You just CAN'T cheat it, you CAN'T ignore it, and you CAN'T remove it. The only things you can do is MINIMIZE IT. That takes bit-depth. Yes, you can do analog and digital low-pass filtering, but in order for that filtering to not affect the frequencies of interest, the "quantization noise" must be very, very small. That again means more bit-depth.
So what? you say. That stuff is "down in the dirt", and with 96 dBm of resolution, it simply doesn't matter. Probably true if all you listen to is 128 kb/s MP3's with 2 dBm of dynamic range, through $15 earbuds; but you see, the biggest thing that quantization noise brings to the party is Harmonic Distortion. That is caused both by the quantization itself, causing your nice sine wave to turn into a stair step approximation of same; but also by the sharp edges of the steps themselves.
And the quieter the signal, the greater that noise plays a part. That's why they often characterize noise as an Equivalent Input Signal.
Have you ever had a stereo or musical instrument amp with a blown speaker? When the music is loud, you don't notice the voice coil scraping against the side of the magnet; but when the music is quiet, you can clearly hear the signal get "fuzzy". That's because the "signal" got quieter; but the "noise" stayed the same volume. Therefore, the signal-to-noise RATIO went up. WAY up!
So it is with quantization noise. And when you consider that, even when it is "loud", Everytime the waveform approaches a zero-crossing, it is momentarily "quiet". So, this means that the lower the bit depth, the lower the signal-to-noise ratio, and hence, the higher the Harmonic Distortion.
Period. That's physics, not audiopile bullshit.
So, what you are saying is that you never upgrade RAM or hard disk drives? You never replace the hard disk to get a larger drive or faster SSD over the course of ownership?
Your comment is silly, and you should feel silly typing it.
You need to learn to READ. I said:
If you have a laptop, AIO, or cylindrical computer like nearly all Mac (not "Hack") owners,and you have to take it apart more often than once every half-decade, then it is your computer (and/or you) that has a problem.
Well, if we're talking about a recent laptop, most of them have soldered-in RAM; so nevermind that upgrade.
My 2013 MacBook Pro still has RAM sockets; but that is about the last year you'll find them on nearly any laptop, from any manufacturer. In fact, there is some sort of Windows standard that REQUIRES soldered-in RAM (can't remember the stupid MS name for it). And since Apple computers are Certified for Windows, I would imagine that applies to them, too.
As for HDD/SSD, sure. But if you are upgrading those more often than every half-decade, something is wrong in your personal ability to spec hardware properly; or you are just one of those insane people that absolutely MUST have something new every 6 months. Again, see "can't spec hardware properly."
That's why I put the qualifier on it of "every half decade". You chose to ignore the qualifier and turn it into an absolute "never"; which I CLEARLY didn't say.
So, it is actually YOUR comment that is silly, and you should learn to read.
That mysterious "iTunes Music" of yours sounds a lot like "Apple Music", except of course that everybody knows that not the entire iTunes store is available on Apple Music
My mistake: I read "iTunes Music", and my brain "saw" "Apple Music". Yes, everything I said about "iTunes Music" actually pertains to "Apple Music". My apologies.
Having said that, I didn't "lie" about the "Entire Catalog" being available for streaming through Apple Music. If you will care to read more carefully, I said virtually the entire iTunes MUSIC Catalog is available for streaming through [Apple] Music." A few (very few) of the more "Top of the Pops" songs are not available. These are usually the same ones that are not available for single-song purchase. That isn't Apple's doing. It's the record labels that are controlling what is, and what isn't, available.
But in about 3 months of searching for, and listening to, many, many songs on Apple Music, I have only encountered about one or two songs that were in the Catalog; but weren't available for streaming. So, I consider it a pretty damned good deal to be able to pick and choose what I want to listen to from NEARLY the entire iTunes MUSIC Catalog, instead of having some stupid AI DECIDE FOR ME.
That's where Apple Music whips all over other streaming services; that is if you are in the U.S.A. (I think Apple Music may still be U.S. only). And I am not sure it is available on Android. I run iTunes on my work Win 7 laptop, and it does work there, though.
I subscribe to iTunes Music, and it hasn't deleted a single byte of data from my work Win 7 laptop, my MacBook Pro, my iPhone nor my iPad.
I don't know what is iTunes Music. Is that a made up product that fanbois use to defend Apple when it's clear to everyone else that Apple did (again) a terrible job with one of their actual products?
No, and if you'd get your head out of your ass, perhaps you would have heard of it. it's Apple's Streaming Service; and although I generally hate streaming services, this is pretty cool. They have the typical "channels", which I ignore; butmwhat is quite unique is that you have unlimited access to virtually the ENTIRE iTunes MUSIC Catalog, with no frickin' AI deciding what you " want" to hear. Just do a MUSIC search in the iTunes Store, click the Play icon, and voila! Even works on cellular (you have to enable that specifically in iOS).
Oops, forgot a link.
One of the links leads to a story where a guy complains about Apple Music (not mere iTunes). When you subscribe, they actually remove files from your machine and store them in "their cloud", playing you back whichever song they deem a match for your file. And you lose it all when you stop paying.
https://blog.vellumatlanta.com...
This is fast becoming an urban legend. But it just isn't true. Neither iTunes Music nor iTunes Match (two entirely separate services) delete ANYTHING from your computer/iPhone/iPad.
I subscribe to iTunes Music, and it hasn't deleted a single byte of data from my work Win 7 laptop, my MacBook Pro, my iPhone nor my iPad.
That's cute. When you're a DJ, 44khz isn't enough. 16 bits is fine. Do you know why? Should I bother telling you?
It has to do with that Fourier transform thing. When you have two different tracks that are in different keys and have different tempos, you need more samples than 44khz to do the pitch and tempo shifting to match the two tracks.
Keep feeling smug, though. Clearly I must be wrong.
What you are running into is math errors piling-up. That's why you need both higher sample rates and higher bit depth.
And no, 16 bits isn't fine for anything more critical than listening to a portable music player on the train.
There's really no point in 96khz ever. You can fully reproduce an analog signal with a digital one by simply making the sample rate double the spectrum that you need to capture. Since human hearing tops out at 20khz, there's no point in sampling more than the 44khz found in CD's, which means that extra information is effectively just wasted space. 24 bits per sample is also a waste unless you work in a studio type environment and are working with a master copy that you intend on mixing, however a human listener can't distinguish 16-bit from 24-bit.
You're wrong. And 16 bits is an even worse restriction.
There's this thing called "aliasing". You might want to look into it.
The devil is literally in the details, or lack thereof, in under-sampled signals. Listen to some music with some percussion instruments like Triangle, Bells, Tambourine, or some Cymbal-Types. I have gotten really sick and tired of 44/16 music with cymbals that sound like escaping steam, and tambourines with aliased "undertones" down into the upper-BASS regions.
That's why I buy my music on DVD-A whenever possible. Even my 60-year-old Male ears can DEFINITELY hear the difference. And as far as the bit-depth goes, whip out an oscilloscope and the Philips Test CD, and watch what happens with the -60 dBm Sine wave. Spoiler alert: It comes out as a SQUARE wave...
I'll have you know I could listen to my collection in only about 4.5 years. Assuming I never slept.
If I fed different streams to each ear and had my corpus callosum severed I could get through it in just over 2.
You don't see a correct Corpus Callosum reference everyday. Kudos!
iTunes is a dumpster fire of astronomical proportions, but at some point the user has to take some responsibility for not entrusting valuable data to a flaky consumer-grade application. This sounds like a case where the wrong tool was used for the job.
I suspect he had iTunes to listen to shit he bought, and pro-grade software to deal with his own compositions, but a) as a composer the amount of songs he has to buy is probably several orders of magnitude greater then that of a sane person, and b) it's not unlikely iTunes found his work stash all by itself, and then when he clicked the wrong dialogue on the "cleaning space" screen it decided "why does he need 6 separate versions of this one song we have on the iTunes cloud" and deleted his originals.
While your comments are kind of off-mark, it did make me think of the "De-Duplication" feature in iTunes. The user has to invoke it manually; but I could see someone doing that without thinking it through, and trashing large sections of their iTunes Library.
No iTunes actually deletes the files. If you want them again you are supposed to redownload them from apple music. But it will also "match" your song to its internal database, and if there is a match then the file doesn't even make it to the cloud, they just serve you the version they have. On top of it, if you stop paying for apple music, you loose access to the files you stored in the cloud.
But, iTunes Match is a completely Opt-In service. Not that losing ones' data is ever cool...
Why in the hell are there just a bunch of conspiracy nuts here today? At least more prominent than usual.
Says the AC, who is obviously too paranoid to log in...
Seeing the same problem. Appparently it's a software problem since my local Apple Store said they weren't allowed to accept a laptop for repair with that problem.
Liar.
Apple people never take their precious hardware apart. They have to bring it into a "genius" and hope they can help.
What you mean is, "Apple people hardly ever HAVE to take their precious hardware apart."
If you have a laptop, AIO, or cylindrical computer like nearly all Mac (not "Hack") owners,and you have to take it apart more often than once every half-decade, then it is your computer (and/or you) that has a problem.
And, BTW, every Mac owner I know either does their own service on their Macs, or has a knowledgable friend/family member help. I only know of one that went to a Genius Bar, and that was just once.
I was wondering how much of this is simply pulling the relevant WebKit changes into their copy of the Blink tree.
Well, as much as I would love to think that, I am pretty sure it is not the case.
I am pretty sure that App Nap and Safari Power Save are "private frameworks" for OS X and Safari. Remember, WebKit is only the "rendering engine" (I think); not the entire Browser; and if this was part of WebKit, I'm pretty sure the other 99% of the WebKit-Based browsers would have started to tout this "battery saving" feature by now.
From 3 years ago. It wants its System-Wide App Nap and Safari Power Saver features back...